Founded in 1974, MDRC is committed to improving the lives of people with low incomes. We design promising new interventions, evaluate existing programs, and provide technical assistance to build better programs.
MDRC develops evidence about solutions to some of the nation’s most difficult problems. Explore our projects and variety of products, including publications, videos, podcast episodes, and resources for researchers and practitioners.
MDRC’s initiative Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) seeks to improve graduation rates for community college students by helping states and colleges develop large-scale, financially sustainable support programs based on strong evidence. This issue focus provides an overview of the project.
Introducing the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt Project
Procedural justice centers on the idea that individuals’ perception of the fairness of a process determines how they respond to it. In this random assignment demonstration, child support programs are applying this principle to reframe their work with families as a respectful, problem-solving endeavor.
This is the second in a series of Q&As with past participants in MDRC’s Judith Gueron Minority Scholars Program to hear their reflections on their experiences at MDRC and to learn what they’re up to today.
Engaging California Parents During Child Support Order Establishment
Child support agencies in Sacramento and San Joaquin Counties and the Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services team tested whether a behavioral intervention could increase the percentage of parents who responded to early paperwork and got involved in the child support process.
In the first year after random assignment, welfare recipients who participated in Minnesota’s subsidized employment program were more likely than control group members to have been employed; this modest effect continued after the subsidies ended.
In a new feature — Where Are They Now? — Delia Kimbrel, Director of Research and Analysis at ImpactTulsa, reflects on her experience as a doctoral fellow in MDRC’s Judith Gueron Fund Minority Scholars Program and what it meant for her career.
Increasing Child Support Order Modification Review Completion in Ohio
In Ohio, the process to modify a child support order has two stages that typically take more than 100 days to complete. In two counties, the Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services team worked with local agencies to test four interventions designed to simplify the process.
A central element of effective social programs is reaching the target population. Establishing clear and achievable enrollment benchmarks can help programs do just that. This post uses the example of enrollment to establish specific steps that can help practitioners meet benchmarks that are realistic, well-defined, and robust.
This study, implemented at two community college systems in Texas and one in California, tested whether biweekly disbursements of financial aid rather than lump sum payments could help students budget more efficiently and improve their academic and financial outcomes. Overall, this approach did not have substantial impacts on student outcomes.
As an alternative to random assignment, a regression discontinuity design takes advantage of situations where program eligibility is determined by whether a score exceeds a threshold. With careful attention to assumptions, analysis, and interpretation, this quasi-experimental design can provide rigorous estimates of program effects. Reflections on Methodology outlines some considerations.
Lessons on Advancing Latino Success from California’s LATIDO Project
Latinos are California’s fastest growing population, but less than one in four earn a college degree. A new study from the Latino Academic Transfer and Institutional Degree Opportunities (LATIDO) project examines how five California Hispanic Serving Institutions are working to improve the college achievement rate of this community.
This report presents early impacts on an alternative rent policy designed to reward work among housing voucher recipients. The policy increased earnings in two of four locations, reduced administrative burdens in all four housing agencies, and somewhat reduced tenants’ rent and utilities expenses and their likelihood of exiting the voucher program.
This visual tool is intended to help colleges undertaking student success programs create process maps. A process map is a visual representation that breaks down a process into every decision point, communication, and activity involved from the perspective of a user — in this case, a student.
Using Behavioral Science to Identify Barriers to Credit Intensity and Satisfactory Academic Progress
Taking enough credits and passing enough classes are key requirements for college success. But behavioral and institutional barriers often get in the way. A new report from MDRC shows how behavioral science can expose these barriers and help colleges move their students past the finish line to graduation.
In Practice: Lessons for and from Practitioners is a new web series that highlights the work of MDRC’s technical assistance teams, which work with partners on the ground to solve everyday problems and improve services. Monthly posts will feature tips, tools, and stories from our collaboration with practitioners.
The Early Implementation of College Promise Programs
College Promise programs offer scholarships for up to 100 percent of tuition and fees. Many Promise programs are adding to their models by providing students with support services. MDRC’s College Promise Success Initiative (CPSI) works with Promise programs interested in including such services; this brief provides some early implementation lessons.
This Excel tool is intended for colleges undertaking student success programs. It helps colleges set benchmarks: outcome measures that they can use over a defined time period to measure success relative to a prespecified target.
This web feature is the last in a series from the Chicago Community Networks study and offers users the opportunity to interact with the study’s data set through a series of customized network maps that show interrelationships among organizations according to selected neighborhood characteristics and network statistics.
Using Behavioral Strategies to Increase Initial Child Support Payments in Texas
This behavioral science-based intervention was designed to increase the percentage of employed parents who made child support payments during the first months after a new order was established, before employer income withholding went into effect. It did increase the percentage who made payments in the first month.
This evaluation examines a “growth mindset” intervention for ninth-graders as they make the transition to high school. It aims to boost students’ ability to meet challenges and persist in school by demonstrating that academic setbacks do not indicate poor intelligence ― with the goal of enhancing academic resilience and, ultimately, performance.